Five one-sentence reviews

Boston has become an unlikely epicenter of operatic activity through May and June. American Repertory Theater is premiering a new work about Walt Whitman during the Civil War called Crossing. At the other end of the spectrum the Boston Early Music Festival is presenting some of the oldest surviving operas, a trilogy of works by Claudio Monteverdi. Boston Opera Collaborative is staging Ned Rorem's treatment of Our Town.

Odyssey Opera is in the middle of their spring festival, and on Saturday night I saw Kings, Queens, Saints & Sinners, five monodramas (scenes for one singer) by British composers. Each scene ran only about 15 minutes, so they merit short reviews.

1. Four Poems of St. Teresa of Avila by Lennox Berkeley – Contralto Stephanie Kacoyanis had a warm stage presence and a shimmering voice in these songs of devotion.

2. Ophelia by Richard Rodney Bennett – Countertenor Martin Near had unsteady pitch and no evident connection with the French text, ultimately just singing notes off the page.

3. Phaedra by Benjamin Britten – Mezzo-soprano Erica Brookhyser sacrificed diction for tone production, obscuring a third of the words; she wasn't really singing about turnips, was she?

4. King Harald's Saga by Judith Weir – Soprano Elizabeth Keusch sang a three-act opera (with epilogue) about Norway's failed invasion of England in ten minutes; her a cappella virtuosity and dramatic clarity crowned the evening.

5. Eight Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies – Baritone Thomas Meglioranza took us inside the madness of King George, and he was definitely singing about cabbages.